The Oakland University men’s soccer team was shut out 2-0 on Saturday Nov. 16 by Milwaukee, who outshot OU 12-10 en route to a Horizon League Championship semifinal victory.

OU finishes the year 7-7-5 while powerhouse Milwaukee improves to 14-2-2.

“No one likes to see your season end but we came across a very complete, balanced strong Milwaukee team,” OU head coach Eric Pogue said in a postgame interview with OUGrizzlies.com.

“(Laurie Bell of Milwaukee) scored an absolutely fantastic goal early and we were fighting from behind all game, which is difficult. Credit to our men as we came out early in the second half with a ton of fight, energy and determination and created a number of scoring chances on their goal, just lacked the final quality to get that goal to make the game 2-1 and make a war of it.”

Bell, the Horizon League Co-Player of the Year, opened up the scoring for the semifinal match in the 13^th minute. OU goaltender Sean Lewis tallied five saves, but Bell’s long right post shot would not be one of them.

The Panthers’ second and final score of the game came in the 38^th minute off an Andrew Stone sliding shot to the left side of the net.

Milwaukee goalkeeper Liam Anderson only had to face two shots on goal from the Golden Grizzlies to land his ninth shutout of the season.

“Wish we could have lived to fight another day for them, but it was not to be tonight,” Pogue said of his six seniors. “But we can hold our heads high with the effort and fight we showed to try to get back tonight and really all year as our men have been warriors.”

The loss marked the last game of their career for the following seniors: Goalkeepers Lewis and Scott Messer, defenders Nick Kristock and Lucas Diener and midfielders Sean Magee and Miche’le Lipari.